StarshipUK wrote: The system is one of the most difficult I have come across, if not the most difficult. Some games were made for use the the microdrive, and some with floppy. Some need more memory to run, others will only run on standard memory without extensions. Some can be made to run by modding the boot files with an extra command, while others cannot - there is no definitive list of all games that were made for the system either, but a few lists and listings all over the place which I have already found gaps in. When I was referring to Baron Rogue needing a dongle, it does say here it needs a key cartridge to run:
http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/updates.html which I was presuming is some kind of special security dongle\cartridge specific to this game. Now when I was told that some games needed machine code modification to run, then its a whole different ball game. Again its a shame notes were not kept on what games needed what modifications as its gonna piss off the purists big time in years to come, as well as make people wonder if there any major differences between the original and the modded version they are playing.
A key cartridge is not a dongle - it is the original copy protected microdrive cartridge for the game. Luckily, since I managed to track down the copyright holder for Labochrome, based on his memory of the copy protection method, I found a way of getting around it. I have just not had the time to change the entry on the page on my RWAP Software site.
As for changes needed to each program - I guess the reason why I didn't keep notes was that the majority of the changes were made by me over the last 30 years based on trial and error and sometimes co-operating with others who had previously managed to get around the copy protection, OR had a later version of the software which had copy protection removed by the publisher. Plus I originally did all of this to safeguard my own personal collection of QL software - to allow me to use it on other systems and when master cartridges failed. That personal collection began morphing into an attempt at preserving QL software only a few years ago when I realised that I was running out of time and energy to continue.
There has never been a concerted community led initiative to preserve QL software or to overcome the various copy protection methods - the majority of software which has been listed online has been the same set of 10-20 games, most of which are still available to purchase on a commercial basis, whilst ignoring the 100s of titles which have been added to the Sinclair QL Homepage over the years and the 100s of further titles which are much harder to find and preserve.
Working out the method to remove the copy protection is never an automated method, apart from the few programs which use the old Sinclair Development Kit (FLOAD / FSAVE and FLRUN) where I managed to work out the changes needed to the kit to by pass the disabling of the editor, so I could enter SuperBASIC and use the normal SAVE routine.
There are many protection schemes, for example:
a) The Sinclair Development Kit was mainly issued to people who were having programs published by Sinclair - programs were still written in SuperBASIC, but stored using the tokenised version of the program, thus allowing them to load quickly. It included the ability to add copy protection and block access to the SuperBASIC interpreter. The downside is that when you bypass this and then SAVE the SuperBASIC program, it takes much longer to load, and needs more room on the microdrive cartridge.
b) A simplified form (similar to the copy protection afforded by the development kit) is to format the cartridge with a specific number in the directory header and check that number has not been altered (it is normally a random number).
c) Programs such as the Pawn, use a much more complex method whereby they load the program from specific sectors on a microdrive cartridge plus there was talk that the program used its own operating system !
d) Some programs use direct machine code access routines to look at specific sectors on a cartridge to see if they are marked as bad in the directory table, or deleted.
e) Some software requires the use of a plug-in dongle - although this is few and far between so far as I have seen
There are other routines which I have come across which are impossible to tell what they do and decode - particularly if you have a corrupt master cartridge - for example loading specific sectors from the cartridge over the top of some of the code already in memory.
For the purists (and masochists) - Outsoft's own preservation project is creating image dumps of microdrives and disks - although this is still rather hit and miss, particularly because of the age of many of the microdrive cartridges, you may need to merge 3 or 4 cartridges to get one good working one - not easy where microdrive cartridge images will undoubtedly be different for each cartridge (even if the same version of the program).
As for changes - programs which have been modded in some other method to add features or fix bugs tend to have an updates_doc document alongside them - that is something that most software authors have always been good at.
As for complaining about the availability of software free to download - have you looked at the wealth of games (including many former commercial titles) which appears on the Sinclair QL Homepage (somehow you seem to have ignored this, as you wanted help getting some original programs to run, which are available on that site). Getting more software added will always be a long drawn out process for various reasons:
a) There are very few people interested in spending time preserving and getting old QL software to work
b) Most of the people who are interested have been smeared and attacked on various places on the internet because they dare to believe in copyright
c) The copyright holders themselves are put off by finding that whilst their programs are still available to purchase commercially, they get put onto websites without any attempt to ask them and then when they insist their software is removed, they are again attacked for daring to ask
d) There are various formats for storing QL files in use - for example, disk .img, microdrive .mdv image, QL zipped files, q-emulator zipped files, QXL.win, HXE; plus lots of different combinations of hardware and emulated hardware
e) There is a distinct lack of volunteers to try and track down and contact copyright holders
f) QL software is expensive and you generally need several copies in order to make one working copy of a program.
In reality we need some sort of non-profit making organisation which would lead the preservation effort and obtain the copies of software which are required. The chances of that ever happening are minimal - as has been reflected by the complete silence since I said I was no longer willing to do any software preservation or tracking down of copyright holders due to the negative comments which my efforts had attracted from certain sectors.